Never Wait to Fix in the Mix
Ok, well never is one of those definite words I actually don't like to use, so I'd rather say hardly ever...
Either way, don’t get caught in the habit of thinking, “Oh, we’ll just fix this in the mix.”
Passing the problem down the river only leads to a broken dam. If you want a great mix, then it’s best to set yourself up for greatness.
Here are 3 tips to keep in mind at every step of the song creation process.
1. Good Music Stems
Let’s look at the instruments in your song. Are they smashing up against the meter’s ceiling harder then Super Smash Brothers?
Give them some headroom, let them breath. Pull them back immediately!
Make decisions early on with the arrangement. Shaping the instruments and drums to sound how you or the producer intended, will lead to no confusion for the mixing engineer.
2. Good Vocal Recording
This is crucial. A clean vocal recording is a big piece to getting a clean mix.
If you recording a vocal performance that’s filled with emotion, the best performance you can give, but it’s clipping (going past 0dB on the meters), then there’s essentially no way the mixing engineer can take away the crunchiness.
I hope you love extra crunchy peanut butter cause that’s what you’ll be receiving.
Decision making is back center stage. A strong recording engineer will have the option to dial in EQ and some compression to record vocals.
Work on capture the performance you want with a clean recording.
3. Vocal Editing Before the Mix
Got a good vocal performance, great! Now it’s time to make sure your edits are done before sending to the engineer.
This doesn’t mean add crazy compression and all the sound FX in the world to the vocal track your sending. That’s a problem in itself that I will focus on at a later date.
Vocal edits like making sure any punches are cross-faded and your phrases end properly and not abruptly are good practice. (refer to the checklist available to download at the end of this email to see a visual)
Antidote time
I’ve received vocals that had this particular problem. The ninja engineering technique I used to fix this was to add delays and reverb to mask the sudden cut in a phrase.
Yes, things can be fixed in the mix, but sometimes it’s to a certain extent. If you’re looking to have that professional sound – as a Creative Pro that I’m guessing you are – then working to get the song to sound as close to what you hear in your head will make all the difference.
As a mixing engineer, there are items that can be fixed in the mixing stage. Too many items on the list however takes away from the magic that could be focused into taking the song to the next level.
A solid performance, recording, vocal tuning and editing leads to a great professional mix.
Get The Checklist
You can download the checklist here if you would like to save it to refer to during recording. Whether it’s the recording engineer, producer, or it’s you recording yourself, go into a recording prepared. That way you can capture a good performance and have the best audio set to send to the mixing engineer.
